By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
It’s easy for Malachi Zeigler to look ahead, knowing the promise that the future has for him.
It’s not as easy for Malachi Zeigler to look back, often because he doesn’t like what he sees.
Which is why now is an interesting time for the star Benton quarterback to be who he is, who he was and what he will become.
It takes about 10 seconds to realize this is not your average high school student, much less star football player. This season is filled with a local quarterback class loaded with talent and Zeigler is certainly one of them, which is why SMU will be welcoming him to their signing class later this fall.
You come away from a conversation with Zeigler with the realization that he’s just different than most others. Sure, he’s in this school club and that school club and has been recognized a campus leader, not just for his football exploits.
But it’s his perspective that makes him different. As soon as he steps on the football field, everyone knows who he is. It’s easy to draw a straight line from here to what he might become in college football.
When you’ve got a future laid out in front of you, why should be all that concerned about the present?
Because he’s Malachi Zeigler, that’s why.
“It’s all about being present where your feet are,” he says. “I want to be able to look across the horizon but still be able to enjoy the view where I am. You don’t want to sprint by it, but you don’t want to crawl either.”
An uncommon quote from an uncommon 17-year-old.
This is someone who noticed what happened with something as simple as a chair on a recruiting visit. Someone who volunteered to help at a junior high summer camp when there was absolutely no requirement to be there. Someone whose coach says he’s “never seen” a player with such off-the-field character.
“I feel like any words I use to describe how awesome he is are inadequate,” says Benton coach Stephen Dennis, who has been coaching high school football for 19 years.
But before getting too deep into who Zeigler is now, and in the future, it’s important to look back at who he was.
Which, he will admit, wasn’t always pretty.
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It was obvious from the start of his high school career that Zeigler was going to be something special as a quarterback. As a freshman, he had the build (6-3, 195 as a 14-year-old) – not the mention the arm – that had future star written all over him.
He did get a taste of it as the Tigers went 5-5 in the 2023 regular season, throwing for 286 yards and four touchdowns off the bench.
Zeigler knew he would become a starter the next year, but as he looks back on it, he realizes it’s not a pretty sight.
“I’m not afraid to say it, but when I first became a starter, I was a big me-first guy,” he says. “Part of it was good because I was wanting to get better, but part of it was overconfidence, cockiness and things like that.
“I was humbled,” he adds.
A 1-9 record in 2024 has a way of doing that.
Benton got a little better in 2025, going 2-8 in Dennis’ first year, but after a Week 1 win over Northwood, Zeigler and the Tigers are seeing progress before their very eyes.
“I want to make a statement not just about me, but about this program and how I want to leave it,” he says. “I don’t want there to be any doubt as to the work we put in through the transition with changing coaches. It’s just we’ve gone through a lot. So I don’t want there to be any doubt as to the mindset that we have and are going to continue to have for even after we leave.”
Before Zeigler can answer how he has changed as a quarterback through the years, Dennis jumps in.
“It’s his comfortableness in the offense,” he says. “We feel like he’s a coach on the field now. I think last year he was learning what the aspects of this offense were. Now he’s running the offense. And it’s night and day in terms of what being an elite leader requires. I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody be as aware and then actively work to sharpen his skills in those areas. It is impressive to watch.”
Coming off a year in which he threw for 2,697 yards and 23 touchdowns (as well as running for 503 yards and seven scores), Zeigler got off to a solid start this year in the win over Northwood, hitting 14 of 16 passes for 179 yards and four scores … and adding another 140 yards on the ground.
For Malachi Zeigler, next year is next year. But he already planning on bringing the lessons he’s learned over to SMU.
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A chair.
That’s all; just a simple office chair.
Ask Malachi Zeigler what made SMU stand out as his choice to play college football and he likes to boil in down to just that.
“Once you get to a certain level, everybody’s going to have a good program,” he says. “Everybody’s going pay NIL. You got to find separations and points of difference.”
That’s where the chair comes in.
When Zeigler and his mother would go on recruiting visits, there would always time to meet with coaching staffs. “My dad was always at work, so it would just be me and my mom,” he says. “And how they treated my mom was big for me. Some places you’d go, my mom would have to stand up, which is fine if you don’t have extra chairs. But when I went to SMU, one of the staff members stood up and went to another room and got a chair for my mom. It’s the family aspect of it. Little things like that.”
Zeigler watched earlier this week as the Mustangs opened their season with a win over Florida State. Knowing where he will be next year, he probably watched that game with different eyes than almost everybody else.
“I can see myself fitting into their scheme extremely easily,” he says. “A lot of their RPO stuff and their base offense is similar to what we do here. The transition, obviously, is going to be difficult from high school to college. But as much as you can bridge that gap, the better.”
“This young man is aware of what it’s going to take for him to compete for that job when he gets to SMU, and he is trying to actively sharpen his blade right now,” Dennis says. “So that when he steps foot on that campus in December, he’s fully ready. He’s trying to do everything he can to be reflective and think about the areas he thinks he needs to improve upon.”
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Right now, all eyes are on Zeigler whenever he takes the field. Four-star recruits have a way of being noticed. But he also knows what it’s like to be a freshman, but he’s ready to make the change when he wears that tag at a different level.
“Over there, it’s back to ground zero,” he says. “Because once you’re in college, nobody has stars, nobody has rankings. I’m a freshman. I gotta carry the ball bag. I gotta load the water bottles. I gotta work my way from the bottom up. But that’s the part I’m excited for because I feel like I’ve been an upperclassman my whole high school time, so I get to go to the bottom and work and grind for that spot, and that grind is kind of what’s pushing me to keep going.”
Zeigler tries not to think about how much his life is going to change when he heads west in December (as an early enrollee). But he knows he will bring with him many of the lessons he learned at Benton.
“It’s a culture and as Coach Dennis says more than anybody – leave it better than you found it,” he says. “Whatever it takes, but what are you willing to do? It’s not something that I take lightly. To be able to not only to have college (future), but to have a family in football at Benton, to be able to work and come and grind with everybody and sweat, bleed, laugh, cry, whatever, and just to have that family.
“Now, I’ll have that in college,” he adds. “I’ll have a new set of guys that I’ll be grinding with every day. That’s exciting.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com